Friday, March 12, 2010

New Rose Elinor Dougall Single Plays Here!

Next to the new Sophie Ellis-Bextor, the album I'm most looking forward to this year is the debut solo CD from Rose Elinor Dougall. The ex-Pipettes singer has shown another side of herself as a performer with the 4 solo singles she's released to date. It's not that I don't love The Pipettes but they alternated between humour and nostalgia and Rose seems to have found a few other emotions to highlight in her solo work.

Following "Another Version of Pop Song", "Start/Stop/Synchro", and "Fallen Over", "Find Me Out" is yet another mini-masterpiece. Let's just say that fans of the first Portishead LP, Black Box Recorder, and early 1970s UK folk will be happy. Mixing a modern production sheen with a retro wistfulness, Rose has mellowed out a bit on this track.

The spacey Joe Meekisms of "Start/Stop/Synchro" have been smoothed into little bleeps behind her clear, crystalline voice. The song is simple and does not overstay its welcome. It's lean and direct, hinting at something more without belaboring the point.

It's very English in the same way that The Sundays' "Skins and Bones" was, even if there's not a jangly guitar to be heard anywhere in the mix.

And, as a fan and armchair scholar of UK pop, I'm a bit stunned at how complete and well considered each single has been so far; her 4 solo singles are as strong as most albums I've heard in the last few years.

Rose is not trying to sound like her old band -- there's not a trace of the Pipettes' sound unless you count that wistful quality which you can hear on the bridge of "Judy", or on "A Winter Sky" -- nor is she trying to be different for the sake of being different.

You can play the song below and then order it on a variety of formats as the 3 May release date approaches.

Search this site

About Me

I write about stuff I like.
Born in Washington, D.C., in 1967, I spent most of my life in Maryland before I moved to Hong Kong at the very end of 2011. I worked in Kowloon, and lived on Lamma Island, for nearly 3 years, and then I moved back to Maryland with my wife at the end of August 2014. When I was younger, I worked in 3 record stores in College Park, Maryland, from 1987 to 1990 and those jobs gave me a lot of joy, as well as a musical education. I was once a huge fan of the cinema of Hong Kong, especially Shaw Brothers titles. An Anglophile, I still gravitate to British films and music. My youth was spent on Marvel comics, and Starlog and Famous Monsters magazines; Universal and Hammer horror movies; the work of Ray Harryhausen; classic American films of the 1930s; Hanna-Barbera cartoons; music from the glory days of American AM radio; lousy TV reruns; Mego toys; and Godzilla flicks...